Death of an Adept

Chapter Thirty-Five

HERMITAGE Castle brooded on its foundations like a massive gargoyle, but the castle itself was not Raeburn's destination tonight; rather, the ruined remains of a small stone chapel, several hundred yards to the west. He had considered using the nearby Nine Stane Rig, where Soulis had met defeat so many years before at the hands of his enemies - and in reversing the results of that defeat, Raeburn intended to see his own latter-day disappointments avenged and undone - but the Black Mass he had chosen as a fitting framework for his revenge on Adam Sinclair required a site consecrated according to Christian rites. The chapel ruins were somewhat more in the open than Raeburn regarded as optimal, with most of the foundations standing no more than waist-high, but on the first night of February there was even less chance of interruption than there had been on New Year's Eve.

It had been dark for more than four hours when a white Land Rover rumbled across the bridge and whispered to a halt next to a second one parked a short distance from the start of the chapel ruins, screened from the road by a stand of winter-bare trees and almost invisible against the snow. Ahead, heavy snowfall had softened the ragged outlines of the stones and lent a deceptive tranquillity to the icy gloom of the winter's night.

As Klaus Richter materialized out of the darkness beside the driver's door, clad in snow-camouflage and with the mouthpiece of a radio headset protruding from under his balaclava helmet, the driver rolled down his window.

"All secure," Richter murmured, gloved hand resting on a compact semiautomatic weapon slung around his neck as he leaned down to glance at the three passengers in the back seat. "You can bring him on out and unload the rest of the equipment."

No lights showed as the vehicle's front doors swung wide and two of Richter's mercenaries bailed out, white-clad like himself, a back door opening more slowly for Derek Mallory to emerge, wearing a cowled black robe and a bronze medallion stamped with the head of a lynx. When he had pulled out his medical bag, he stood aside to let the men haul Adam from the car. Simultaneously, Angela alighted from the other side, the two bags of Adam's blood tucked under one arm, garbed incongruously in the black habit of a nun.

Adam gasped as his bare feet touched the snow, wincing as one of his handlers grabbed his left wrist where Mallory had pulled out the IV just prior to their arrival. With his drugs discontinued and most of a unit of dextran in him by then, Adam had rallied somewhat in the preceding hour; but he still was dangerously weak, and had to fight back a swooping episode of lightheadedness as Richter and Mallory half-walked and half-carried him between them toward the chapel ruins, dragging his bare feet along the snow-covered ground. The night was still, but the cold penetrated Adam's single layer of wool almost as if he wore nothing at all. Behind him, muffled thumps and grunts told of equipment being unloaded from the Rovers' rear compartments.

The chapel's interior was open to the sky, its ruined walls conveying the impression more of a paddock than a building. Snow lay heavy within, piled in drifts against the side walls downwind, but the area around the shattered altar in the eastern end had been shovelled clear, and a series of white-painted plywood sheets had been erected along the chapel's northern side, to further screen the inside from the road.

Adam was reeling by the time his handlers dragged him over to a clean-shovelled spot to the right of the altar, where one of Richter's white-clad underlings was shaking out a thick white blanket beside a pair of folding chairs. The blanket was a welcome weight around his shoulders as he was wrapped in it and lowered to sit on one of the chairs, Mallory remaining with one hand set solicitously on his shoulder. It was all that kept Adam upright. He drifted for a little while, huddled and shivering, until awareness of movement nearer the altar brought him back to remembrance of his peril.

They were preparing for the unholy work to come. The altar was largely ruined, but two of Raeburn's men had lifted several broken slabs back into place to form a roughly horizontal surface, and were draping the altar with a heavy cloth of black velvet. Another man brought two heavy wrought-iron candlesticks, as tall as a man.

From a capacious duffel bag came a battered wooden crucifix, a brass thurible and incense boat, and a massive chalice of tarnished bronze with matching paten. These Angela arranged on the altar, while a cohort shook out a set of Satanic vestments - black wool faced with scarlet silk, emblazoned front and back with a blood-red inverted cross.

These, too, were laid out in readiness, along with the bags of Adam's blood, an aspersing pot, and an aspergillum made from black goat's hair. The totality of this assemblage of paraphernalia left no doubt in Adam's fuddled mind that Raeburn intended to extract every iota of anticipation from his intended victim, who could not fail to recognize the trappings required for the promised Black Mass.

The soft, whistling chuffle of a helicopter descending beyond the ruins behind Adam heralded the arrival of Raeburn himself shortly thereafter, wearing a cowled black robe and the silver medallion which betokened his status as Lynx-Master. He gave Adam a steely-eyed nod as he entered the chapel accompanied by Barclay, also robed, and a tall, gaunt stranger with furtive, darting eyes - by his Roman collar and greasy black soutane, surely the requisite defrocked priest required for the night's undertakings.

Behind the priest came two more anonymous henchmen supporting another drugged and drooping figure between them, white-robed and barefooted like Adam, bowed head lolling forward on his chest. When Mallory had spread a second blanket on the chair beside Adam, the two deposited their charge and supported him while Mallory turned the newcomer's face upward to shine his pocket torch in the other's eyes.

Adam had a brief, dazed impression of glassy eyes, drooping moustaches, and thick braids falling to either side of the slack face. Memory supplied a name, previously attached only to photos: the missing lolo McFarlane. As Adam himself came briefly under Mallory's scrutiny, he found himself almost envying the young Druid, for it occurred to him that before too much longer, he might well wish to be equally insensible of what was happening around him.

The prospect became more probable as Mallory's place was taken by Raeburn, who smiled coldly as he produced a lynx medallion, near-mate to the one he was wearing, and reached out with both hands to slip the chain over Adam's head. The medallion felt heavier than stone where it fell on Adam's chest, and seemed to reverse some of the recovery he had made in the past hour, dragging him into renewed lethargy, setting him drifting….

Somewhere in the vicinity of Peebles, some twenty miles due south of Edinburgh, the ringing of McLeod's portable phone made itself barely heard above the mechanical roar of the chopper's powerful rotor-blades. Thumbing the On switch, McLeod jammed the instrument to his ear as Peregrine and Ximena leaned closer from adjacent seats. The red cabin illumination lent an infernal cast to their taut faces.

"McLeod."

"Noel, they think Raeburn may have gotten wherever he's going,'' Julia informed him excitedly through snaps and crackles of static. "Sir Gordon says you're to head straight for Gal-ashiels, then drop due south toward Hawick. Hand me to Peregrine while you're relaying that, and I'll give him exact map coordinates."

"Right."

Handing off the phone, McLeod scuttled forward to pass the instructions to Harry and Duart. He could feel the chopper picking up speed and slipping slightly to the right as he returned to his seat, where Peregrine was opening a map under a penlight Ximena was holding above it. Cochrane now had the phone to his ear, keeping the line open for further instructions. Behind him, the four men of the hostage rescue team checked and rechecked their equipment.

"What have we got?" McLeod demanded, crowding closer.

Peregrine shook his head, consulting the numbers he had copied onto a notepad.

"Apparently he's on Map 79, somewhere on a line due south from Hawick," he said, running a fingertip down the map and then pulling off his spectacles so he could focus closer in the dim light. "She said to allow about five miles to either side, but if we're looking for something on the scale of Cal-lanish, I don't see much that qualifies. A couple of cairns… some earthworks… here's a wee stone circle out by someplace called Dodd, and something called the Tinlee Stone… the Catrail Earthwork - that's old… a stone circle at someplace called the Nine Stane Rig - probably with nine stones… and something called the Buck Stone, near Hermitage Castle… and - "

"Hold it!" McLeod broke in. "Did you just say Hermitage Castle?"

"Yes."

"Bloody hell," McLeod muttered, leaning back to rummage in Peregrine's art satchel. "Where's that book on Scottish castles?"

"I've got it," Ximena said, plucking it out and opening it. "What am I looking for?"

"Hermitage Castle. And Peregrine - how far is that from here?"

"About - twelve miles south of Hawick," Peregrine said, holding the place on the map with his finger as he looked up at Ximena, who was frantically paging through the book. "Why? What's special about Hermitage?"

"I've found it," Ximena said, as McLeod pulled the map around for a closer look. "Hermitage Castle… built in the thirteenth century by Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith… cause of an invasion by Henry the Third in 1243… had passed to the de Soulis family by 1306, then to the Douglasses in 1320, then the Earls of Angus, who traded it for - "

"Run that by me again?" McLeod interrupted sharply. "Did you say Soulis?"

"De Soulis," Ximena amended. "It says here he was a - "

" - famous Scottish sorcerer," McLeod finished for her, digging in Peregrine's art satchel again to snatch out lolo McFarlane's dream journal. "Now, where's that page with the code or anagram or whatever it was? Here!"

Opening to the page, he thrust it under Ximena's light.

"Just what I thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid! We've been mistaking an i for an apostrophe. It isn't Soul's Gstrig - it's Soulis - and the other word is Gstrig - whatever the hell that is. Peregrine, grab that book on Scottish folklore and look up Soulis. Gstrig," he repeated, brainstorming aloud, as Peregrine grabbed the designated volume and began paging through it. "Maybe Gst Rig. A rig is a ridge or narrow hill."

"Here it is," Peregrine said. "William Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle, notorious for his wickedness, said to consort with evil spirits, boiled in lead at the stone circle at Nine Stane Rig, a mile or so from the castle."

"That's got it!" McLeod declared, bending closer to lolo's page. "If this first G in Gst Rig is actually the number 9, that makes it 9 St Rig - Nine Stane Rig. And if Raeburn is headed there, to the place of Soulis' death - Dear God, he's going for some kind of pact with Soulis, some dark alliance, and Adam - "

He closed the journal with a snap, his face deadly taut in the red cabin light. "Harry!"

He grabbed Peregrine's folklore book and scrambled forward again. "Harry, I'm taking a big gamble, but it's the only one we've got - the only one Adam's got. How long to get us to the Nine Stane Rig? It's about ten or twelve miles due south of Hawick, near Hermitage Castle."

"We're just coming up on Galashiels," Harry said, walking callipers across his map as Duart and one of the SAS pilots looked on. "Say, five to ten minutes down to Hawick, and maybe another ten to where you want to go. We'll have to follow the road, from Hawick, or we'll never find it in the dark. You think that's where he is?"

"God, God, God," McLeod whispered, "I hope so. Just get us there as fast as you can, Harry. We may be almost out of time!"

Only snatches of Raeburn's further preparations filtered through to Adam in the next little while: Raeburn passing wid-dershins around the inside perimeter of the ruined chapel with a darkly glittering dagger, defining the boundary of this most unsacred space, then tracing that same boundary with one of the bags of Adam's blood, leaving a scarlet line of life marking out the limits of death…

A black-robed acolyte taking up the thurible and setting it alight, charging it with a noisome mixture of sulphur and saltpetre whose fumes lay reeking along the path he trod close behind Raeburn…

The black priest donning black vestments as Angela lifted the skirts of her habit to squat down and urinate over the aspersing bowl, which the priest then used to pollute the altar and unbless the most unwilling victims set helplessly before it….

There followed an obscene parody of an ecclesiastical procession up and down the chapel, led by the thurifer and fresh clouds of noxious smoke. Raeburn followed in his wake, brandishing aloft a staff of alder-wood from which a crucifix hung by the heels, in blasphemous mockery of all the holy symbol stood for.

Two of Raeburn's black-robed subordinates came next, each bearing one of the iron candlesticks, squat black candles now alight. Barclay, Mallory, and Angela followed, preceding the black priest, who sprinkled urine left and right and led a dissonant litany in some unknown tongue, whose rhythms sent chills up Adam's spine.

By the time the band had reassembled before the altar, the incense smoke had settled to a noxious and vaguely visible carpet of mist that lay uncannily across the entire expanse of the chapel floor. Adam stifled a gasp as tendrils of that smoke snaked softly upward to lick at his bare ankles, but he could not summon the will to shift his feet. It was hard enough merely to remain sitting upright, all too aware that to overbalance and fall off his chair would be to expose his entire body to whatever animated the smoke.

"In nomine Magni Dei Nostri Satanas, introibo ad altare Domini Inferi," the black priest intoned, moving behind the altar, his words snapping Adam's attention back to even more immediate concerns as he began the sequence of the Black Mass.

"Ad eum qui laetificat meum,'' came the response of Raeburn and his associates.

"Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini Inferi."

"Out regit terram…"

"Confiteor coram Principe Tenebrarum, Domino Satanas… "

The perverted introit gave way to a Satanic confession of faith, praising the depravities of Darkness and importuning the intercession of ancient Evil, the corrupted Latin phrases echoing within the invisible confines of the ruined chapel. Closing his eyes, Adam tried to close his ears as well, retreating to his mantra of psalmody; but discordant fragments of the black priest's words kept breaking in on his concentration like shards of broken glass piercing vulnerable flesh.

The growing pain of it stretched him to the brink of crying out, but he set his teeth in stubborn denial, knowing that any vocal expression from him would be tantamount to participation, praying for the strength not to be swept away by the encroaching darkness. The ending of the collects brought relief of a sort - but only until someone brushed roughly past him, jarring him back to urgent awareness and the discovery that the dark ritual was moving forward.

They had come to take lolo McFarlane. Opening his eyes, Adam saw Mallory and one of Raeburn's acolytes jerk the young Druid to his feet and hustle him, unresisting, over to the front of the altar. Raeburn was there already, kneeling down with the second bag of Adam's blood to trace a large triangle on the ground. Already drawn were two sides of a second, even larger triangle, scaled to define perhaps a two-foot border between the two.

After finishing the inner triangle, tracing it a second time to be sure there were no gaps, Raeburn handed off the bag to Mallory, who was standing by with the glassy-eyed lolo. As Raeburn rose, he pulled lolo to him, so that they both were standing in the open side of the outer triangle, facing the smaller one inside. Then, from the bosom of his robe, Raeburn produced an ancient and evil-looking dagger.

Its design proclaimed it to be the product of Pictish workmanship. Its aspect proclaimed it an object of power. As Adam gazed at it, he found himself suddenly remembering the tore which Raeburn's superior, the Head-Master, had worn at the height of his power, and knew the blade to be of kindred crafting and potency.

Raeburn, for the moment, was unmindful of anything outside his own intentions. With one arm braced around the shoulders of the oblivious lolo and the other directing the focus of his will into the dagger in his hand, he embarked upon a new chant. In contrast to the voice of the black priest, Raeburn's was deep and sibilant, a voice of subtle entrapment that ended on a note of command as he thrust the point of the dagger toward the heart of the inner triangle.

A mote of darkness materialized as if out of nowhere, winking once and then expanding with explosive suddenness into a pillar of smoke the height of a man. Churning, the smoke resolved at length into a shadowy humanoid figure with eyes like twin flames - a likeness that made Adam catch his breath, for he had seen the infernal spirit of William de Soulis reflected thus in the vision Andrew Kerr had shown him.

Raeburn took a step closer, holding the dagger between himself and the dark presence he had summoned.

"Welcome, Lord Soulis," he declared. "All that we agreed upon has been prepared. I bring you your new host - one I think you will approve of."

He indicated the passive, vacantly staring form of lolo swaying beside him. Soulis' ember eyes shifted.

This? The query reverberated beyond mere hearing. You deem this worthy? This creature has no fire in its soul.

"Not yet," Raeburn replied. "But the tinder is there, awaiting only your spark. And he has an illustrious ancestry - one which gives testimony to his potential. By direct descent, he is blood-kin to your own most bitter foe: Sir Andrew Kerr, of the Huntsmen of the Light, who imposed your sentence of banishment - the sentence I can rescind."

This disclosure of lolo's identity caused Soulis to rear up, his gaze glittering more brightly than before.

Of Kerr's bloodline, is he? Then he is, indeed, eminently acceptable. But why shows he so little regard for his fate?

"Your new host has been drugged to suppress his resistance," Raeburn explained. "I will have the appropriate antidote administered before you take up residence. And then you will give me what I want, before I grant you freedom."

Fire flickered in the ember eyes as Soulis appeared to consider the matter. Then the shadowy head gave a nod.

Very well.

Mallory had already produced a loaded hypo. Smiling mirthlessly, Raeburn forced lolo to his knees, twisting his neck to one side so Mallory could inject directly into the jugular.

lolo's eyelids fluttered. Letting him sink to his hands and knees, Raeburn and Mallory stepped back, and Raeburn closed off the third side of the outer triangle with a fresh infusion of blood. Then, with the point of the dagger, Raeburn stretched across to scratch a gap in the inner triangle, giving Soulis access to his host.

With an exultant hiss, Soulis burst the bounds of the inner triangle, reverting to fiery smoke as he surged over the vaguely stirring lolo. The young Druid shuddered from head to foot as Soulis took him, body arching backward against the violation, clawing hands clapped to his head as Soulis' essence forced access to the temple of his flesh. As the infestation was completed, lolo gave a single, strangled cry, then sank back on his hunkers, arms falling slack at his sides, his eyes going wholly blank.

Glittering life returned to the eyes with his next breath, but the light of conscious presence was that of Soulis, not lolo. Chuckling with lascivious delight, the black wizard drew himself to his knees, then staggered upright with feet wide-spraddled. His lips drew back in a terrible grin as he cast his burning gaze on Raeburn, speaking with lolo's voice.

"You may proceed with your preparations," he instructed. "I shall prepare myself to petition the Dark Powers, while this body regains its full strength."

He paused for a luxurious sigh, flexing his hands before running them possessively up and down lolo's body. Then he made an abrupt turn and dropped to both knees, abasing himself before the black altar with a raucous shout of exultation.

His cry shivered Adam to the bone, edging him closer to despair as, with sinking heart, he felt hard hands dragging him to his feet, throwing off his blanket to chivvy him forward with rough force. Behind the altar stood the black priest in his Satanic vestments, his eyes wide with mingled shock and awed anticipation. Beside him stood Raeburn.

The two acolytes were waiting to divest Adam of his robe. Though he tried weakly to resist, his body refused to obey him as he was stripped and hoisted up onto the altar, his wrists bound with cords of scarlet silk that then were drawn hard over the sides and secured to the wrought-iron candlesticks now set to either side of the altar's base. They left his feet unbound, but that hardly mattered, since his legs were numb from the cold, his body debilitated from the drugs and loss of blood; and he knew full well that escape - at least of his own devising - was now beyond any mortal hope.

Quivering with cold and shock, he fixed his gaze on the icy stars overhead, squinting against a light snowfall, and tried to offer up his prayers anew - for that was the only recourse that now remained. He tried not to hear as the black priest launched into a twisted parody of the Latin Preface to the Mass, turning his face away as Angela spread a square black cloth over the symbols she had painted on his chest in his blood, shuddering as she set chalice and paten there in readiness. He could feel a brooding Darkness building up around him, threatening to smother him, as the black priest spoke the words of Consecration and lifted the Elements in turn.

Against his will, unable to retreat into trance, Adam was then forced to witness the savage desecration of a Host, followed by the pollution of the Cup with a mixture of urine and his own blood - surely no valid profanation, a still defiant part of him reminded the part that cringed from this calculated sacrilege, for his higher self knew full well that only the Holy Spirit could will the transformation that made Sacrament of bread and wine - not any human agency. Nor could any man compel the descent of Spirit - not even a priest. Especially not this priest.

Trembling nonetheless - for Evil surely had been called down - Adam did his best to show no emotion as the black priest crumbled the desecrated Host above the chalice; but when the priest then turned to lift the cup toward Raeburn, an inadvertent gasp did escape his lips as the Lynx-Master produced two gold wedding bands and Adam's confiscated Adept ring, displaying them triumphantly before he dropped them one by one into the polluted cup.

That simple act underscored Adam's helplessness far more insidiously than the more lofty desecration he had already been forced to witness. As his stunned gaze dimly tracked the cup to Raeburn's lips, marking the other's elation as he drank, dull despair eroded at Adam's will to keep resisting - so that he was almost taken by surprise when Raeburn lowered the cup, dragging the back of a hand across his mouth, then gave a minute signal to his acolytes.

Hard hands upon Adam's ankles and shoulders gave but scant warning of their intent. Physical resistance was useless; nevertheless he fought them feebly, at the same time groping in sluggish memory for words of spiritual defense.

"Accipe calicem voluptatis carnis, in nomine Domini In-fen," the black priest murmured, even as one of Raeburn's men seized Adam's head and held it while another forced his jaws apart and Raeburn moved in with the cup.

I believe in God the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Adam prayed, trying to shield himself in words from the baptismal rite in the Book of Common Prayer. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. I reject Satan and all his lies, and all his works and all his empty promises -

He started choking as Raeburn poured a goodly measure of the polluted wine down his throat. Gagging, he felt some of it start to explode through his nose, but Raeburn seized the cloth from his chest and clamped it over his mouth and nose, holding it there relentlessly until anatomatic reflex forced his victim to swallow or pass out.

Adam swallowed and was released, a shudder of profound revulsion racking him from head to toe as he came up for air, gasping and coughing. Raeburn's spiteful laughter rang in his ears as a hand wiped a cloth across his mouth and nose. His heart was hammering against his ribs as he fell back, sick and faint.

I reject Satan and all his lies, and all his works and all his empty promises, he told himself again, eyes closed against his torturers. The essence of what is sacred cannot be sullied by any human agency, nor can the spirit be touched by anything that the will categorically refuses.

"Enough of fun and games, Master of the Hunt. Time now for a more potent sacrifice."

The words jolted Adam from his attempt to retreat, bringing his focus back to Raeburn with a start. Raeburn's chill smile seemed to float above him as he moved the Lynx medallion back onto Adam's chest, centering it almost gently amid the symbols painted there in Adam's blood, that spelled out his doom. As strong hands again locked on Adam's ankles, Raeburn's gaze briefly locked upon his, mocking, then shifted to the Pictish dagger now glittering in his right hand. With almost caressing slowness, as if to draw the moment out, Raeburn slid his other hand under Adam's neck and tilted his head back to present the helpless throat.

As the black priest sidled closer, the chalice ready to catch the spilling of Adam's lifeblood, Raeburn slowly raised the dagger, his face contorting in a look of fervid exultation, lips moving in an offertory invocation that seemed to deepen the silence all around. Closing his eyes, Adam commended himself once again to the Light and braced himself to render up his spirit with courage, if this was indeed how he was destined to die.

"Goddammit, visibility's getting worse," Harry muttered, night-vision goggles giving him an alien appearance as he strained to see through the perspex of the chopper's windscreen. "We must be getting close, though. We passed Hawick five minutes back."

He was sitting in the co-pilot's seat of the chopper, next to Kinsey, the senior SAS pilot. Crouching behind them, McLeod and Duart were likewise scanning the darkness. Below them, a powerful searchlight beam from the chopper was illuminating a narrow, snow-edged road meandering southward along Whi-trope Burn, another sweeping the countryside off to their left. According to their maps, the Nine Stane Rig lay somewhere in that direction, perhaps half a mile off the road, just past the place where an unpaved track joined the road they were following. In the dark, following a road was the only way to find what they were looking for - and even this way seemed woefully inadequate, as half a dozen pairs of eyes continued to search ahead and to either side.

"I'm not seeing anything," Duart said, scanning with infrared binoculars. "Noel, are you sure they'll be out in the open?"

"No, I'm not," McLeod replied, braced between the two pilot seats. "And if they aren't, I doubt we have a prayer of finding them."

"Then, let's concentrate on finding what we can see," Duart said. "If they're outside - which follows, if they're using an ancient site like the Nine Stane Rig - there'll have to be some lights showing where there shouldn't be lights - which means just about everywhere out there that isn't on a road - and there aren't many roads out here. This isn't a highly populated area. But I sure don't see anything near where the Nine Stane Rig should be. Do you have any idea how big it is? Stonehenge size?"

"I haven't a clue," McLeod muttered.

"Could they be at Hermitage, then?" Peregrine asked. "That's certainly associated with Soulis, and it's only a mile or so further on. If it's ruined enough - no roof - lights inside might show. And we can find the castle by following the road."

"I can have you there in two or three minutes," Kinsey said over his shoulder. "Do you want to check it out? There's nothing out here."

Raeburn's satanic offertory was drawing to a close, its cadence quickening with Adam's racing pulse. But stretched helpless upon that unholy altar, all in the sinking space between one heartbeat and the next, Adam suddenly sensed another presence looming opposite Raeburn - felt icy dread clutch at his heart with paralyzing force, even as something far worse began to probe at his soul. In a vain attempt to throw off the assault, instinct arched his back in violent denial - visceral reflection of his inner revulsion as he felt what shreds of spiritual defense he yet possessed being sounded with irresistible strength.

The instant of penetration was more brutal than any physical violation - and over almost before it began. It drew a scream to his lips that could find no voice as, still quaking, he forced his lids apart to behold the soul-destroying smile of William de Soulis.

In that stunned instant of eye contact, while a shocked part of Adam noted that Soulis apparently was no longer constrained by Raeburn's triangle, a more dispassionate part of him sensed that he was in the presence of a black Adept more powerful than any he had ever encountered - far more powerful than Raeburn, though it was doubtful that Raeburn recognized as much.

And Adam was certain of one thing more, in that shivering infinity before he wrenched his gaze away. Whatever bargain Soulis and Raeburn might have struck, Soulis was merely awaiting the chance to dishonor it.

But Raeburn was finishing his offertory chant, his hand behind Adam's neck thrusting the throat upward even as his blazing eyes followed the slow, glittering descent of the ancient blade sweeping downward to deliver the coup de grace.

Except that Soulis suddenly intervened physically, diverting the death-stroke with a decisive sweep of lolo's forearm "Hold!"

The tone stopped Raeburn as much as the word or the outstretched arm. Panting with frustrated bloodlust, he glared at Soulis with hot eyes.

"Hold? Why?" he rasped.

Soulis' response was cool, but colder still was the hand he brought to rest atop the lynx medallion around Adam's neck, the fingers wide-splayed to caress the symbols painted on the chest of his chosen oblation.

"I find the body of this man better suited to my needs than the one you chose for me. I will have it - or none. Render another to the Prince of Darkness."

Adam could scarcely breathe, dared not move, darting his glance furtively between Soulis and Raeburn. Raeburn's chest heaved. Wavering, he transferred his glare to Adam, the blade in his hand still mere inches from his victim's throat. Adam could almost hear him thinking, weighing his own lust for murder against the more subtle prospect of letting Adam become possessed by Soulis, a prisoner in his own body. After a moment Raeburn exhaled heavily and lowered the blade.

"Very well," he agreed. "You may have this one - but only after you have kept your part of the bargain by empowering the dagger."

Soulis nodded agreeably. "As you wish. The blood of an unwilling victim is still required. I will appoint one myself. It shall be… him!'' He stabbed a finger at the black priest. The man gasped and recoiled, only to be seized by two acolytes, the chalice wrenched from his grasp. As Angela came to take charge of it, Barclay and Mallory joined in to help strip the priest of his unholy vestments. Smiling a secret smile, Soulis retreated to the far end of the altar to observe. Raeburn, with a calculating glance at the struggling priest, cut the cord binding Adam's right wrist and summoned Mallory to help him shift Adam far to the left side of the altar to make room.

"Well, out of the frying pan, Sinclair…" Mallory remarked, ducking to tighten the remaining cord binding Adam's left wrist. "Do you want me to get something for the other one?" he asked Raeburn as he straightened, jutting his chin toward the now naked priest.

"No, we'll make this quick," Raeburn replied. "Our guest doesn't seem to like drugs. Barclay, get him over here!"

The black priest moaned and twisted in his captors' hands as the lynx medallion was transferred from Adam's neck to his, bucking and pleading as they lifted him onto the altar beside Adam and held him down rather than bothering to tie him. He continued to struggle weakly as Raeburn forced him to take a draught from the chalice he himself had desecrated, Mallory holding his head and another man leaning across Adam to pin his left arm. He subsided whimpering as the chalice was handed off to Angela, tears trickling from the outer corners of his eyes as Raeburn raised the dagger and began the offertory again.

With all attention now focused on Raeburn, and one of his minions still leaning across Adam's body to help hold the now sobbing black priest - blocking Adam's view but also partially shielding him from observation - Adam dared to gather himself for one last, desperate, silent cry for help, refusing to squander whatever time he might have left - for when the priest died, Soulis would turn his attention to his preferred offering.

Shrinking from the obscene power being focused right at his side, but with his thinking somewhat cleared by the adrenalin-surge of the past minutes, Adam dragged himself sluggishly downward into trance, doing his best to visualize one of the psychic flares he had once described to Harry Nimmo, sending it aloft with a prayer.

As the image spiralled haltingly up and outward, his exertion was rewarded with a faint but familiar flicker on the distant edge of psychic awareness. His head was pounding with the strain, but fuelled by hope, his psychic cry for help surged upward again with renewed brightness. This time his straining senses touched a familiar hint of presence.

Noel! Peregrine!

Pulse pounding, he concentrated on forcing a psychic shout through the blanketing miasma of evil enveloping the chapel. A rushing whisper began to pulse through his entire body. It took him a few seconds to realize that the sound was coming not from inside his head, but from somewhere outside - the rhythmic whuff of helicopter blades descending out of the night.